New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Hamden’s Pisano returns to field with lots of joy and healthy heart
All over our state, chalk will be lined and lineups will be filled. Saturday will bring the return of high school spring sports to Connecticut: Sports we haven’t seen since June 2019.
No one will relish the day any more than Jake Pisano of Hamden. There were dark days last year when one of the top baseball players in the state believed he’d never again play the game he loves.
Baseball. Softball. Lacrosse. Golf. Tennis. Boys volleyball. Track and field. The starting gun will sound and so will the sounds of, “Play ball!” If all goes well and COVID is contained, this will be the first CIAC season to be competed through the full slate of state championships since fall 2019.
Joy has slowly replaced fear and the sense of renewal is powerful.
“It’s absolutely insane,” Pisano said. “Just being on the field, when you were sitting home by yourself, you don’t have the guys to bond with. Throwing the ball with someone, going to hit, the competitiveness, being around baseball. That’s the feeling you want.
“The scrimmage we played against Amity was the first game I’d played in like forever.”
He had a pair of doubles and a triple.
“I got thrown out stealing a base,” Pisano said. “And even then, I was like, ‘Wow! I’m out here stealing bases!’ ”
Hamden begins its season against Foran Saturday at 1 p.m. in Milford.
Pisano has been named by GameTimeCT as one of 25 CIAC players to watch in 2021. He start
ed at shortstop for Hamden as a freshman. As a 6-3, 220-pound senior, he mostly will play his more natural position of center field.
“Jake has always been a big kid and he’s versatile,” Hamden coach Chris Borelli said. “He’ll play short when our shortstop pitches. He swings the bat hard, hits the ball hard, the ball sounds a little different coming off his bat. Probably his greatest asset, though, is his speed. He’s the kind of kid who hits a ball to shortstop, beats it out.
“He has grown as a player. He has grown into a leader.”
Leadership can flourish in different ways, from different sources. Pisano’s growth came from a serious heart issue. After COVID canceled the baseball season, and with a couple of Division I schools in the conversation, Pisano dedicated himself to working out hard.
“Working my tail off,” he said. “All of a sudden I’m getting heart pains. I fainted. Every time I got my heart rate up, it was bad. Extreme pain in my chest. I passed out a couple times.”
He was running hills. Down he went. Once his mom and brother had to come and retrieve him.
“My mom and dad were freaking out. They’re like, ‘No 17-year-old kid, especially an athlete, should have heart problems,’ ” Pisano said.
These were complicated times. Doctors were booked with COVID. And with COVID, there is widespread fears of myocarditis. That’s what Eduardo Rodriguez, who had such an emotional and victorious return to the Red Sox on Thursday, endured. Usually caused by a virus, myocarditis is an inflammation of the heart muscle that can affect the heart’s electrical system and cause rapid or abnormal rhythms.
“The doctors were thinking I had cardiomyopathy,” Pisano said, “which would be career-ending.”
This is a disease of the heart muscle that makes it harder for the heart to pump blood to the rest of your body. There are various types of cardiomyopathy with varying degrees of severity and it can be the result of another condition or inherited. It’s not always a simple diagnosis.
“For like two months, they couldn’t figure out what it was,” said Pisano, who went through the battery of EKG, stress tests, etc. “For a while, that’s really what I thought it was. I thought my career was over. I gave up my dreams of baseball. It’s a whole new perspective when you think the dream you had as a little kid of playing college baseball, the next level, is over. You’ll never play again.”
Those things filled his head. The unknown can be frightening and disheartening. The heart can do cruel things to the mind. And the mind can do cruel things to the heart.
“Eventually, I found out it wasn’t cardiomyopathy,” Pisano said. “I have an abnormal heart rate. Abnormal T waves. I was working out so hard that the muscles around my heart were so swollen. The blood wasn’t pumping through. Basically, I couldn’t do anything for four months to get my heart rate up.”
In January, he got the best news possible.
“I’m 100 percent cleared,” he said. “I have to go for a checkup every year to make sure nothing turns up, but I should have no problems the rest of my young life.
“I thank God every day it wasn’t cardiomyopathy and I’m out here now playing with my guys. The experience was life changing.”
After he graduates from Hamden, Pisano will attend Westminster School for a post-graduate year. He has a strong friendship with its coach Tyler Wosleger. He wants to use the added year to better position himself for college and college baseball.
“I’m hoping for Division I, hoping,” Pisano said. “You’ve got to shoot for the stars, right?”
The last official game Hamden and Pisano played was in the state tournament on May 25, 2019. The Green Dragons had a 2-1 lead against New Britain in the sixth inning and lost 3-2 in eight.
“I still feel like we should have won that game,” Borelli said. “We left guys on base early and missed the opportunity to extend the lead. We left the door open for them to steal the win.
“We would have had 11 seniors last year, they never got their chance to play their last year. It’s a shame we’ll never see what they could have done. A lot of guys on the field this year are new. There’s a lot of talent, but we’re still figuring out how to fit all the pieces.”
Cleared, motivated to be the leadership piece as a senior captain, Pisano talked about getting out early at 5 a.m. at Hamden High to work out. He thought he’d be alone. He wasn’t. Other guys joined him. He said he felt a brotherhood forming.
“What happened was one of the best things to ever happen to me,” Pisano said. “There were times when I was like OK, baseball is over. I was done. I was in such a bad place. But I’ve got such a good family and other special people who showed me you could be more than a baseball player. Be the best guy you can be. I feel like I grew so much as a person. I can look in the mirror and say I’m proud of this person.
“I was a good player, but I never was a strong leader. I’ve taken the responsibility I’m going to do everything I can to make this team successful.”
Baseball is a game of individual performance, too. Your name is listed among the best players in the state. There has to be goals.
“If you asked me before, I would have given you a bunch of numbers,” Pisano said. “Hit .500. Make AllState. I saw the Top 25. Yes, I’m honored. Such a great list to be part of, but the list that really stood out was the Top 10 poll. Hamden didn’t have one vote. That’s what we’re going to change. We have 12 teams on our schedule that did get votes. That put a chip on our shoulder.”
And a competitive joy in Jake Pisano’s healthy heart.